


Signal's Last Stand

by Snailcomicz



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Gen, I tried to make the Warden's origin as neural as possible, Light Angst, Minor Character Death, Missing Scene, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-02-28 15:46:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18759493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snailcomicz/pseuds/Snailcomicz
Summary: What was going through Alistair's mind, in between the tower falling and the other Grey Warden recovering? More specifically, with Alistair's Templar training, he had to have realized Flemeth was some kind of Apostate/Witch before the other Grey Warden woke up, even if he didn't know she was THE Felmeth.Why didn't he take her down immediately?A character study/missing scene right at the start of the adventure





	Signal's Last Stand

The tide had seemed to be _turning_.

The thrown together party had managed to defeat an ogre, the signal was lit, and they were double checking that the ogre was dead when an arrow barely whizzed past Alistair’s shoulder. He turned, blade and shield ready in an instant, to find a crowd of darkspawn had blown their way in through the tower wall. Both Wardens leapt away from each other, trying to make a less appealing cluster of targets for the archers, as more arrows were loosed at the thrown together party.

“Protect the oth-”

The other Grey Warden's warning was choked, cut off with a sickening gurgle, and their helmet clanged as it hit the ground. Alistair only had a moment to see arrows that seemed to have sprouted in them as they fell, several in their chest and one dangerously close to their neck, before the darkspawn rushed him.

He raised his shield, trying to follow through on what very well might have been the other Warden’s last command. He wasn't even sure if he remembered their name, as Duncan warned him not to get attached to any new recruits until after the Joining.

He tried to slice through the tide, aiming more to make an opening for flight than to do any real damage. A hurlock took advantage of a gap in his guard, slipping their blade around his armor and slicing him in his side.

“Get to the stairs-” He’s not even sure if it was the man behind him or himself that tried to give the directions.

Something massive rose up from behind the hoard, and for a solid second Alistair was convinced it was the archdemon itself as his mind scrambled to find a way for _any_ of the people in the tower to escape, much less _all_ of them. A different blade jammed itself into his armpit, and he couldn't tell which Darkspawn from the hoard it was from anymore.

A scream came from behind Alistair after an arrow whipped past him, and he gave the others a mental apology. They weren't getting out of the tower.

The horde pushed against him, a solid wall of force he couldn’t hold back alone any longer.

Something closed around his waist and squeezed.

* * *

“-n’t see the point in waking-”

“-ealing’s working properly, I need-”

“-getting up I see-”

“Stop him from pushing himself off the table-”

“Oh yes, well _done_ Mother, he’s as helpless as a _kitten_ now-”

Darkspawn wern’t in the right place anymore, he couldn’t feel his arm, magic was prickling under his skin, he couldn’t even see all that well through the haze of pain but he needed to move leave get out getout getoutgetoutget _out_

A hand roughly grabbed his face and he tried to shy away-

“ **Sleep.** ”

-move back but all he really felt was down-

“On the floor Mother?”

-falling back-

“-urt himself movin-”

-and out.

* * *

This time, instead of consciousness suddenly rattling around his skull, it leaked in like a dull ache. He felt scrubbed raw, muscles complaining as he started trying to move. He flexed his hand as soon as he realized he felt that arm again, just to make sure it was all still there, attached and everything. He remembered everything that happened at the tower, everything that went wrong and shouldn’t have _happened_ , before he tried to open his eyes to figure out where he was-

-And jerked back when he found an old woman watching him.

“GAH-”

“Good.” She stood up and waited. After an extended pause where Alistair tried to wrap his head around the woman, her hut(It probably was her hut, right?), and the fact he wasn't nearly as dead as he really should have been, he realized she was waiting for him to respond.

“Where’s the tower?”

The old woman smirked, outright _smirked_ as if it wasn't a reasonable question. “Clearly not here, child-” Alright, _fine_ , that one was sort of a gimmie, but his mind was still reeling and-

“Wait wait wait, no, how did we get _out_ of the tower?”

“Did you not see the massive bird pick you up and bring you here, boy? You seemed more conscious than the other Grey Warden, as unbelievable as it was-” The other Grey Ward- His head snapped up.

“Are they alright? Did they survive?”

“My daughter managed to stabilize them before searching for more herbs, but one alive Grey Warden is better than two dead ones and you were better off-" She raised an eyebrow. "Well, marginally better off, so I finished healing you first.”

Places he remembered being stabbed prickle and twinge and ache. Healing should have taken bandages and herbs, and although his nose stings something awful from the elfroot, the bandages he _did_ have weren't nearly reinforced enough to stem blood for long.

Long enough for magical healing, perhaps, but she wasn't wearing a Circle Mage’s robes so-

“You’re a witch.”

He was watching her, so he saw her wrinkled face slide into a smug smile, and he almost acted the way he was supposed to, he almost lunged forward to grab her, _almost_ activated his Templar training the way he had always been taught-

But the other Warden hadn’t been healed yet.

Cutting this _witch_ off from her magic would mean she couldn’t heal them, and he’d be _alone_. He knew, with how bad off both Grey Warden’s injuries were -and _still_ were for the other warden, they hadn’t been healed yet-, they couldn’t be too far from the tower. He could also sense that the Darkspawn were too distant, to far past where he could only guess the front line was, to assume anything but the worst for the rest of the troops.

Everything within him screamed at his traitorous action, but he was willing to beg at the knees of everything he’s learned to subdue in order to not be _alone_.

“ _Please_ heal them, I- If there’s anything you missed with me, it can _wait_.”

* * *

Eventually, even panic and curiosity became numb, leaving him staring out at the lake and trying to think of anything that could come next.

The other Grey Warden might recover enough to leave, and then-

Something must have happened to Loghain, so-

The Blight was still happening, which meant-

Nothing. Without Duncan, the other Grey Wardens, even the Chantry, _anyone_ to tell him what came next, he had no idea what they needed to do. He was a follower, very good at supporting others and contributing to the cause, if he did say so himself,

But.

He’d so solidly pushed against every chance at leadership that managed to come his way, he was now lost at the idea he might need to be the one making the choices.

That he might be the _only_ one making the choices-

“See? Here is your fellow Grey Warden. You worry too much, young man.”

He’s already turning before she can start her third sentence, eyes catching the silver and blue emerging from the doorway. They’re squinting at the sudden sunlight, one hand raised to attempt to shield their eyes, and he can still see fading blue and purple along their neck from the worst wound but-

“You… You’re alive!” Unnamed relief leaks out of him in a single breath “I thought you were dead for sure.”

**Author's Note:**

> *Points with my pointer and pinky at Alistair and the Grey Warden, no matter what origin* And in all of my current and future playthoughs, they subsequently became best friends.
> 
> You can also find me on at https://snailcomicz.tumblr.com and https://www.pillowfort.social/snailcomicz . I draw, and am probably going to be doing a LOT of Dragon Age art over the next couple months.


End file.
